If you've ever sat with a laptop on your legs for a long period of time, then you must know how warm computers can get.

Tech companies have spent millions of dollars trying to find innovative ways to keep data servers cool – but this is the first time that an organization has attempted to harness the heat instead.

Nerdalize has created a specially designed server that doubles as a hot water heater. Dutch families who purchase the server from Nerdalize are estimated to save over $330 in annual gas bills, while simultaneously saving over 3 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. Since the cost of one of the servers is only about $300, it basically pays for itself within a year.

Tech companies have spent millions of dollars trying to find innovative ways to keep data servers cool – but this is the first time that an organization has attempted to harness the heat instead.

Nerdalize has created a specially designed server that doubles as a hot water heater. Dutch families who purchase the server from Nerdalize are estimated to save over $330 in annual gas bills, while simultaneously saving over 3 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. Since the cost of one of the servers is only about $300, it basically pays for itself within a year.

Tech companies will also save millions of dollars in expensive cooling apparatus and data centers that are bad for the environment – which is ideal, considering that data servers are estimated to have become as bad for the environment as airlines, thus making up about 2% of the world's carbon emissions.

By distributing computer servers across Dutch households, tech companies are expected to save as much as 50% in infrastructure costs.

As Nerdalize so aptly says, "it's a win-win-win situation".

Several Dutch households have reportedly already hosted the servers for nine months without incident. Nerdalize's crowdfunding campaign, which has already raised $750,000 (two and a half times its original goal), will help roll out the servers across the Netherlands in the coming years.

(WATCH the video below)

Become part of the Nerdalize family - Crowd Investment Campaign 2017 from Nerdalize on Vimeo.

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